


the sky is infinite

by pugglemuggle



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Character Study, Cuban Lance (Voltron), Galaxy Garrison, Gen, Insecure Lance (Voltron), Lance (Voltron) Character Study, Lance (Voltron) Has ADHD, Lance (Voltron)-centric, Pre-Canon, lance worked hard to get to where he is and i want ppl to recognize that!!!!!, originally published in a zine
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-28
Updated: 2018-06-28
Packaged: 2019-05-29 18:57:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,160
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15079556
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pugglemuggle/pseuds/pugglemuggle
Summary: Seven-year-old Lance turns around, looks up at his older brother on the couch, and says with all the starry-eyed sincerity he can muster, “I want to be a pilot.”(Or, seven moments on Lance's journey to reach the stars—and beyond.)





	the sky is infinite

**Author's Note:**

> Originally written for the [Starboy Zine](https://lancezine.tumblr.com), in collaboration with artist [brobuddypal](http://brobuddypal.tumblr.com/).

i.

It’s a blue day in Varadero. The sun is bright overhead, warming the white-gold beach until it sparkles almost as fiercely as the ocean itself. Across the shoal, Lance can see the sky and sea sharing their colors. The shades of blue are so alike that the horizon is nothing more than a kiss.

On summer days like these it’s almost impossible for Lance’s mother to keep him inside. He’s seven and he wants to burn his feet on the sand, skin his knees on the surf, plunge his head under the waves and come up laughing. Today is different, though. Today, Lance is passing through the living room to find his sandals and his older brother is in the middle of watching Star Wars on the TV.

Lance has never seen Star Wars before.

He’s never been known to sit still long enough for movies, but Lance is captivated. The X-wing pilots remind him of the gulls that circle the isle, looping and rolling and diving across the line of the waves and sky. With the realism of a seven-year-old’s imagination he swears he can feel speed of the plane in his gut and the thunder of the engine in his bones as he watches that screen. It’s exhilarating. He’s never felt anything like it.

An hour later, he’s still sitting on the floor in front of the TV as the credits roll. He turns around, looks up at his brother on the couch, and says with all the starry-eyed sincerity he can muster, “I want to be a pilot.”

 

ii.

He’s thirteen when his parents finally let him enroll in flight school—Tuesdays and Thursdays, two hours a session. The nearest academy is a short brick building fifteen miles down the coast. It’s old, possibly pre-space travel, with only a few windows per floor. For an aviation academy, Lance thinks, it sure is hard to see the sky.

After a full month of classes he’s finally allowed to fly a plane with an instructor. It’s surreal, to step out onto the tarmac in the hot Cuban sun and see rows and rows of aircrafts stretching out ahead of him. The heat is making the runway look almost wet, as if the planes are floating in water.

His instructor sits beside him and watches him start the plane, check the radio, and taxi it to the hold short line. When the control tower gives them the go-ahead, he takes off.

It’s nothing like the simulator. Lance knows what to do, of course, but the _feeling_ of it, the sensation of accelerating and lifting from the ground and _flying_ —it’s incomparable. He’s almost giddy with it when the plane bounces once, twice, and then rises from the runway and keeps going, higher and higher until the airfield is small and hazy below, obscured by a thin layer of cloud cover.

Lance is _flying._

He can see the ocean beyond the shores of Varadero. The horizon has never seemed wider, never looked closer. He climbs up and up and up and the higher he gets, the more dazzling the sight becomes. The sun is almost blinding.

If the sky is this beautiful, what will the stars look like?

_“Oye_ , _chico_ , I think that’s high enough,” his instructor says. “Let’s try landing now, alright?”

He botches the landing a little, but the instructor passes him anyway. Lance can’t bring himself to care about the grades. There’s only one thing on his mind, and that’s getting back in that plane as soon as possible.

He wants to fly again. He wants to go _higher_.

 

iii.

He’s fourteen and his teacher pulls him aside after his last class of the day. Outside the classroom the sky is almost electric blue, dotted with lazy clouds to keep the air cool. He and some of his classmates are planning to go bodyboarding in a half hour to take advantage of the low winds, and he wants to run home and get changed and crash into the sea and taste the salt on his lips but instead he stands. Shifts from foot to foot. Waits for his teacher to start talking.

“Lance,” Mr. Velasquez says. “I noticed that you signed up for the Galaxy Garrison information session.”

“Yep,” Lance says. “I’ve been in flight school for a little while now. I’m going to be a fighter pilot.”

“Hm,” Mr. Velasquez hums. Lance doesn’t know how to interpret that sound. “How about you sit down for a minute, Lance?”

Lance sits. He taps his thumb against the desk and jiggles his leg.

“Lance,” his teacher says again. “The Garrison has a very rigorous curriculum.”

“I know.”

Mr. Velasquez lets out a short breath and rubs his hand over his chin. “What I mean,” he says, “is that getting in would take a lot of hard work. _Serious_ hard work, and focus, Lance. I’m not sure if you could handle that.”

Lance frowns. “I can work hard.”

“But you haven’t shown me that, Lance,” Mr. Velasquez says. “Your grades aren’t anything to write home about. You have trouble finishing your tests. Your homework always comes in late....”

Lance stares at his feet. He hears Mr. Velasquez sigh.

“Look, I’m not trying to be mean,” Mr. Velasquez says, “but unless you turn things around, that school isn't going to look twice at your application. You need to get your grades up. Do you understand?”

“I guess.” Lance frowns. “But.... What do my grades have to do with how good of a pilot I’ll be?”

Mr. Velasquez looks conflicted for a moment. Then he shakes his head and waves towards the door. “...I don’t know, Lance. We’ll talk more later. Go have fun, okay? I’ll see you tomorrow.”

When Lance hits the waves, holding the bodyboard flush to his chest, the sea spray isn’t as much of a relief as he expected it to be.

 

iv.

“Hi, mom. Do you—do you got a minute?”

Lance sets his elbows on the desk, clutching his phone close to his ear and rubbing his other hand roughly over his eyes. He should be on his lunch break right now but he has a math test in half an hour, so instead he’s in the library desperately trying to shove down the buzzing at the back of his mind and _study_ , damnit. He’s not alone—there’s a girl he doesn’t know sitting a few desks away, and a couple other students on the computers. He hates how pathetic he must seem, to need to call his mom like this during _school_ , of all places. But he can’t bring himself to stop.

_“Cariño, what’s wrong?_ _”_   his mother asks. Lance tries to swallow back the tightness in his throat before answering.

“Um,” he starts, “I.... I’m just having a rough time.”

The practice test he finished is still sitting under his elbow, the red number “64” mocking him from the top of the page. Sixty-four. Sixty-four out of one hundred. The practice test he took yesterday scored sixty-eight. He’s gotten _worse_.

_“What’s going on? Is it about grades?”_

“Sort of. I’m probably going to fail my test next period,” Lance says, letting out a short, humorless laugh. He glances around the library again and lowers his voice. “I can’t do it, Mama. Every time I try, I fail. Maybe I wasn’t meant to go to the Garrison. I can’t pay attention to anything, I can’t do exams, I can’t—”

_“Mijo_ ,” his mom hushes him. Lance digs his fingers into the fabric of his jeans, takes a shuddering breath, and listens. _“Look how far you’ve come. I know what you’re capable of, sweetheart. You have so much more you’re meant to do.”_

“But what if this is it?” he says. “What if I’m at my limit?”

_“You’re not_ ,” says his mom, with a conviction so strong he can’t help but believe her. _“_ _Not even the sky can be the limit for you, you crazy boy._ ”

He smiles a little, feeling the tight restlessness in his chest begin to melt. _“_ _Te q_ _uiero, mamá_. _Gracias._ ”

_“Te quiero, mi muchacho loco.”_

When he finishes the phone call, he goes back over the practice problems he missed and redoes them correctly, cross-references them with his notes, and studies them again. Just a little more. Just a little longer. The stars are calling him and he will _get there_.

 

v.

Lance hears the sound of the mail carrier all the way from his bedroom.

He almost trips down the stairs with how fast he’s thundering down them, taking two at a time and careening around the landing. His socks slip on the kitchen tile and he hurtles through the front door towards the mailbox, not even bothering to put on shoes. The red flag is up. Today has to be the day. It _has_ to.

He opens the mailbox and pulls out the letter.

_“Galaxy Garrison”_ —he’d recognize the insignia anywhere. It’s been seared into his mind, emblazoning the corners of hundreds of practice placement tests he’s forced himself to take over the last year. For a moment, he hesitates, running his thumb over the raised surface of the logo.

“Lance! Don’t leave the door open. We’re not paying to air condition the whole block—” Lance’s mom appears at the front door and stops when she sees him with the letter. She steps onto the porch and closes the door behind her. “Lance?”

With shaking fingers, Lance tears open the seal on the envelope and pulls out the letter.

_“Cariño,_ what does it say?”

Lance blinks, trying to see through the swimming letters on the page, trying to put them in an order that makes sense. He takes a deep, shuddering breath, reads the first sentence, and puts down the letter.

“I got in,” he says. The words taste surreal on his tongue, so he says them again. “I got in, Mama. _I got in_.”

The next thing he knows they’re hugging, so tightly he’s worried his mother won’t be able to breath. His mom is peppering his face with kisses, and he thinks she might be crying, but he’s not sure. “I’m so proud of you,” she says. “I knew you could do it.”

This is only the first hurdle, Lance knows. He’s still got a ways to go.

 

vi.

The simulator whirs to a halt, the artificial landscape on the screen before him flickering away to black. After an hour of solo practice, the tiny pod is hot and stuffy from the heat of all the tech packed into the metal room, and it makes Lance's skin itch. His score flashes on the screen. Eighty-eight. It's not awful—in fact, it's pretty good for cargo class. But Lance isn't planning to stay in cargo class.

He twists his back, pops his knuckles, and restarts the sim.

The machine flips through its 'scape database, hundreds of scenes flashing across the screen as it makes its random selection. Mountains, deserts, forests, tundras. He's seen them all in class. For an instant, the machine pauses on a scene that's all too familiar—white sands, blue waters, a sky that goes on for miles. As soon as his brain processes it, the scene is gone. The simulator settles on a starscape and begins its countdown.

One person. If Lance can beat one person in fighter class, he's in. He pulled himself to the top tier of cargo pilots, and if the rumors are true, it's only a matter of time before fighter class calls up an alternate. That Keith kid never goes to class. He's bound to get kicked out soon.

It's Lance's turn to step up.

 

vii.

“Lance.” When his captain turns on him, Lance feels like he’s crashing even before Iverson opens his mouth. "I hope I don't need to remind you that the only reason you’re here is that the best pilot in your class had a discipline issue and flunked out. Don't follow in his footsteps.”

_The only reason you’re here_.

The words play over and over again in his head for the rest of the evening. The only reason, only reason, only reason, only reason. Four years of flight school, countless hours of intense studying, a year working his ass off at the garrison—and one kid dropping out is the reason he's here? What does Iverson know? What does he know about why Lance is here?

But the part of him that doesn’t know better, the part that doubts—that part _believes_ Iverson, drags him down until he feels every failed exam like red numbers scratched into his skin, and he needs to get _out—_

“Hunk,” he says into the dark of their shared dorm room. It’s almost curfew, but he can see the stars through the window. “Let’s hit the town.”

He belongs in the pilot’s seat. One day, he’ll get the chance to prove it.

_You don’t know me, Iverson,_ Lance thinks. _Just wait._


End file.
